Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Chair of the Department of Biostatistics, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Professor, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Faculty member, Channing Division of Network Medicine
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
John Quackenbush is Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Professor in the Channing Division of Network Medicine, and Professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. John’s PhD was in Theoretical Physics, but in 1992 he received a fellowship to work on the Human Genome Project. This led him through the Salk Institute, Stanford, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), and to Harvard in 2005. John uses massive data to probe how many small effects combine to influence human health and disease. He has more than 300 scientific papers and over 73,000 citations. Among his honors is recognition in 2013 as a White House Open Science Champion of Change.
Genomics has transformed biological science not by producing genome sequences and gene catalogs for a range of species, but rather through the development of technologies that allow us to survey, on a global scale, organisms and their gene, protein, and metabolic patterns of expression. The challenge is no longer how to generate these vast bodies of genomic data, but rather in how to best collect, manage, and analyze the data. As a community, we have a long history of studying biological systems and our best strategy moving forward is to leverage that knowledge so as to best interpret genome scale datasets. Our research group focuses on methods spanning the laboratory to the laptop that are designed to use genomic and computational approaches to reveal the underlying biology. In particular, we have been looking at patterns of gene expression in cancer with the goal of elucidating the networks and pathways that are fundamental in the development and progression of the disease.
John Quackenbush is also a Faculty member of the Channing Division of Network Medicine. Research in the [Channing Division of Network Medicine (CDNM)][1] focuses on identifying the causes of diseases and developing new biomarkers for prevention, diagnosis, progression, and therapeutic intervention. CDNM’s research applies novel systems biology capabilities to vast clinical databases and research studies with genetic, clinical, and epidemiological information on more than 300,000 subjects.
CDNM currently has more than 80 Harvard Medical School (HMS) faculty and 42 fellows and is supported by 160 non-faculty Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) employees, who are primarily in research and administration.
[1]:
https://www.brighamandwomens.org/research/departments/channing-division-of-network-medicine/about
Follow Dr Quackenbush on Twitter @johnquackenbush
Publications
Genome-Wide Sex and Gender Differences in Cancer.
Lopes-Ramos CM, Quackenbush J, DeMeo DL. Front Oncol. 2020 Nov 23;10:597788. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2020.597788. eCollection 2020.
PMID: 33330090. PMID:33330090
Sex Differences in Gene Expression and Regulatory Networks across 29 Human Tissues. Lopes-Ramos CM, Chen CY, Kuijjer ML, Paulson JN, Sonawane AR, Fagny M, Platig J, Glass K, Quackenbush J, DeMeo DL.
Cell Rep. 2020 Jun 23;31(12):107795. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107795.PMID: 32579922. PMID:32579922
Constructing gene regulatory networks using epigenetic data.
Sonawane AR, DeMeo DL, Quackenbush J, Glass K.
NPJ Syst Biol Appl. 2021 Dec 9;7(1):45. doi: 10.1038/s41540-021-00208-3.PMID: 34887443
Blood gene expression risk profiles and interstitial lung abnormalities: COPDGene and ECLIPSE cohort studies.
Moll M, Hobbs BD, Menon A, Ghosh AJ, Putman RK, Hino T, Hata A, Silverman EK, Quackenbush J, Castaldi PJ, Hersh CP, McGeachie MJ, Sin DD, Tal-Singer R, Nishino M, Hatabu H, Hunninghake GM, Cho MH.
Respir Res. 2022 Jun 17;23(1):157. doi: 10.1186/s12931-022-02077-8.
PMID: 35715807
[More publications+][2]
[2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov?term=John%20Quackenbush
